The Goose and Carrot Pub Thread

[roaringdragon]

Everyone is welcome, and the thread disappears after 90 days.

Thank you for the last thread @lougle. I hope the doctor was helpful and DD2 isn’t feeling too rubbish this morning.

DS1 has used the last of his EOTAS hours today. There will be at least a few weeks before the EHCP is finalised and funding restarts. He will hopefully have his operation during that time, but it is still going to feel like a long time without that provision.

@Violasilkie it just shows how awful pip renewal is. It takes me a lot of effort to live in the moment and ignore future problems, this form sends me back to the worst times and forward to my worst fears. I too have heightened worries about politics. My own prepping and anxiety is sky high atm. So many of the proposals are wild! I mean what YP that can’t access so much of life is going to benefit from a therapy voucher.

Worrying and fretting won’t change anything though. I think it’s important to not let the “might happen” steal days when you could be happy.

Me too Zzzzz but I can’t get my mojo to that zone. I am not good when poked by the system. On the upside the submission date will come and go and life will go on.

DS got his Explorer shirt today and then wore it all day. Then I took DD to trampolining with her friend from primary and his sister and the mum went on about what great marks the friend is getting and what great GCSE choices the daughter is making. She was asking about DS GCSE choices and looking at me like "why are you putting up with this" when I told her how awful it is. I mentioned that we want him to move to a school that goes up to 18 and she was going on about how far it was.

I mean, I'd a million times rather live with DD than her DS (who DH has banned from the house for messing with stuff and bothering the cat) but it's left me sad.

Sorry you are finding the pip form process tough too @PurringTiger I've been doing more of the form but its so long, its far longer than the original one I filled in.

I've not done any prepping if that's the getting tins etc in. We do live right by a shop at least. DS would just eat all the tins of custard and rice pudding now and the rest would never get eaten.

@PurringTiger I’m sorry you are finding things tough.

I agree @Zzzzzs. What will be, will be. One foot in front of the other. One moment at a time. I try not to think too far into the future. You can only do what you think is right in the present. You can’t account for every eventuality that may or may not happen at a later unspecified date.

@Violasilkie it might seem longer because each activity is broken down into more questions whereas the PIP2 is more open ended, but the AR1 is actually a shorter form than the PIP2.

I think its as the copy of the pip2 I have is 9 pages (did it online) and the form I have is 25 pages. It will end but just feels depressingly long at the moment.

The paper PIP2 is 50 pages and has the same questions as the online version.

Actually it will be as my answers came to 9 pages, so not longer but it's also going through the more years rather than just past 6 months. I would guess the starting the form is the worst and I am through 7.5 pages now.

I’m not sure a shorter form is always easier, anyway. The AR2 is much shorter, but how to tackle it divides opinion. If nothing has changed, some are of the opinion you should just tick the box for no change and not write anything. Others think you should tick the box but still provide information on the support needed.

Yes I saw the AR2 and at first I was jealous of the shortness but then read it and thought it's impossible to show his condition properly on this. I think it's safest to include all the support needed again though in our case as I applied mid hospital first time we need to anyway. At least I just have one child to do. I probably should just get on and finish it though bath may arrive on Thursday, date to be confirmed. But once it's done I will feel fine again and stop moaning. When I had cancer treatment we found that the group was half be positive and half moaners, I was in the moaners and was interesting that during treatment be positive had better mental health but at the end they often crashed whereas we were the reverse. Once it's over I am la la la life is almost perfect again.

We had Sunday lunch early today and DS has not been eating it past few weeks so we got pork today and he ate the pork, veg and roast potatoes just leaving the Yorkshire pudding so much better.

@Violasilkie its ok to be upset/fed up/moan about it. It’s a worrying process. I’m waving pom poms as I’m being all of those things and more. I also think that we are similar in having no regular intervention or system support so it all feels unusual and threatening. November we will both be la la la and revert back to the lives we live. I’m going to tackle it a bit more tomorrow.

@drspouse DS in his explorer shirt all day made me smile.

It is upsetting. I found ehcp the same. A huge joy sucking heartache headache of a job. It took so much if my emotional reserves and I think most of us have enough on our plates.

I hated it and will hate it again for the next one. The prevaricating as you lead up to it, the dipping in and out as you try to force yourself like pushing a cat into a bucket of water to just do it, the hours of writing and rewriting evidence of your child’s lack, the revisiting of difficulties and highlighting of minutiae, the indignity and indiscretion of over sharing details of your private life, it’s ALL an assault on your peace.

Do it fast if you can. Put aside days not weeks. Cry and find someone to lean on. I don’t know what the solution is. What would be better or more reasonable but it is awful and it is a blight on lives that are already hard. Personally I find it particularly failing if it’s patently obvious to everyone that your child isn’t going to “recover”. It feels like being kicked for no benefit to anyone.

I realised yesterday that what college did for us among many good and bad things was make me give up hope for ds on some levels. Is that “good” and a natural acceptance of who he is going to be or is it a failure on my part to hold his “maybe’s” for everyone?

honk honk to the geese flapping away. It’s nice to have you all to think about things with.

No, I didn’t misunderstand. It’s just our job really is to take clients’ books, sort them out and convert the information into accounts - mainly a profit and loss account (or income and expenditure account) and balance sheet; then calculate the tax they owe. That frames all our thinking.

We only do small clients, who are exempt from producing anything more than basic accounts - and I mainly do incomplete records jobs for DH’s partner, sorting out the mess clients have created in their financial records. Some don’t try - they just send us the bank statements to analyse.

I am not complaining, because they pay us to sort it out; and they have to be good at what they do to afford our fees! They genuinely find it all very stressful, because they don’t understand - which I can remember during my training!

So the main time, we think about expenses is at the end of the year, when producing their accounts and tax computation. We are reporting on what’s happened; we are not doing their budgeting in the present.

We can do budgeting - I worked in industry before DC, after qualifying and doing the company’s budget was fundamental. However, I worked for two qualified accountants, the financial director and financial controller. It is inconceivable that I would have missed out employers NI, staff training, etc in the calculations, when I was also doing the quarterly accounts myself with the actual figures coming in. However, in the profession and industry, on costs was a term I never heard, and nor had DH in the Big Four.

DD1 is still on DLA on an indefinite award, so I have not had to do anything about her disability benefits for about 15 years. I know it will come though! I helped DD2 claim for PIP with a LA welfare advisor, but she was turned down - before mental health was ruled to be a legitimate claim. She was later diagnosed with ADHD and endometriosis (and she turned down the labels chronic fatigue and autism). I have been telling her to reapply ever since, but she says she can’t do the forms, even though a welfare advisor would do it for her!

@LathkillDale you could request to become DD2’s appointee then she wouldn’t have to be involved with the form at all.

It might be inconceivable to you, but unfortunately, it is how LAs work. LAs are unscrupulous. All LAs act unlawfully at times, particularly around PBs. LAs regularly try to mislead around finances. Not just with PBs but, for example, when looking at incompatible with efficient use of resources and unreasonable public expenditure. For example, it isn’t unusual for LAs to understate transport costs to their proposed placement while saying transport costs to parental preference are higher than they are, ‘forget’ their placement would need to buy in some of the provision on top of the base fees, try to say their proposed placement is nil cost or costs very little because of place funding.

I would love to only have to think about the paperwork annually or quarterly. DS1&3’s education PBs are audited every half term. Far more than the vast, vast majority of people with DPs. The audits have never resulted in any concerns.

My LA hasn’t understood the aim in the SENCOP of having a holistic PB with a single integrated fund, so we have several PBs. DS1 has an education PB, a separate education PB for transport (not a PTB because of how my LA pays transport for EOTAS packages) and a PHB. The first is audited half-termly, the other two, annually. DS3 has an education PB, a separate education PB for transport (again, not a PTB because of how my LA pays transport for EOTIS packages) and a social care PB. As above, the first is audited half-termly, the others annually. DS2 has a PTB and a social care PB. The former audited termly, the latter annually.

We haven’t always been audited so regularly. We were audited annually for DS1’s PB for his EOTAS provision for years. That changed when we successfully appealed for EOTIS for DS3. It is revenge and vindictive. Punishment for daring to advocate for DSs. A waste of my time, a waste of the EOTIS co-ordinator’s time, a waste of the pay-roll company’s time, and a waste of the LA’s time. The LA’s policy on auditing is open to interpretation. Fair, appropriate and proportionate. I would argue half termly auditing is not. They state it is. The problem is The Special Educational Needs (Personal Budgets) Regulations 2014 doesn’t prevent an LA monitoring more frequently. I have discussed this at length with various people. The consensus is yes; it is in excess of what happens to most, but the LA could defend the frequency given the sums involved because the PBs are very large.

DS1 has 21 professionals involved in his EOTIS package. 17 of those are regulars and 4 are less regular. No agencies or formal APs used. They are directly employed staff or self-employed professionals. Some provision is over 45 weeks, some 48 and some 52. With some, that is based on hours per half term/term/year. And we have wording to use the provision flexibly and responsively, and we have provision to swap some of the activities for further physio/PT sessions where DS1 is unable to swim/do rebound therapy/other exercise for medical reasons. Some staff are paid per session, some per week, some monthly, some half termly, some in blocks of 5/6/10/X sessions. Then there are budgets within the budget for resources/sundries and another for budget for PfA/life skills/accessing the community/trips/enrichment. On top of memberships/subscriptions, equipment, tech, insurances, training, travel, exercise sessions of our choosing, etc.

For DS3, on top of 1 AP (the only element of the PBs the LA commissions directly, except for the piece of equipment the LA wants to fund directly for DS1 now), DS3 has 19 professionals involved, 14 regulars and 5 less regularly. No agencies. The rest are directly employed staff or self-employed professionals. Some provision is over 39 weeks, some 45 and some 52. With some, that is based on hours per half term/term/year. And we have wording to use the provision flexibly and responsively. Some staff are paid per session, some per week, some monthly, some half termly, some in blocks of 5/6/10/X sessions. Then there are budgets within the budget for resources/sundries and another for budget for PfA/life skills/accessing the community/trips/enrichment. On top of memberships/subscriptions, equipment, tech, insurances, training, travel, exercise sessions of DS3’s choosing, etc.

That was rather longer than I intended. Apologies for waffling on when you are all probably not that interested.

Thanks @PurringTiger I think you are right but at least this will hopefully be over by November and sorted for a while. I've just done more today - I thought originally to do it once a week so my mind has breaks but I think until I've largely done it my mind is going to wander. Also the bath the company we bought it from who get manufacturer to make it have on their system Thursday delivery, how accurate that is who knows and shed is start of November and old one needs to come down so it makes sense to go through as much as possible now. Though I may leave sending it until just before the deadline. I have got onto activities section now so must be roughly half through though have to put evidence together after that but have email folders and files. I just hate looking at them.

I've ordered a Waitrose collection and some more things for the house and DH has just collected those then we'll get on with some work on house this afternoon. I find keeping busy helps and it also burns the extra calories I keep eating lots of chocolate atm.

@Violasilkie on we go! Nearly there. I’ve finished mine today in one big upsetting push and feel relieved already. One thing I did note in the instructions is that it’s says to post 10 days before the submission deadline as it can take up to 10 days to be received. That is today for me so I’m putting it in the postbox today.

@Zzzzzs thanks for the sensible words. Sometimes a bit of straightening out is what’s needed. I often think about the reality and hope dynamic.

@roaringdragon that’s put my renewal form into perspective! The things you describe are blatantly there to prevent perseverance and create confusion and workload. Look how difficult this all is why don’t you just go away tactics.

Great you have finished @PurringTiger We always send ours back recorded delivery the one that guarantees it next day and they have to sign for - its about £10 but covers you if they lose it and also Royal Mail are very short staffed. I ordered some brackets on a 48 parcel thing and they are taking well over a week to get here, 48 is apparently just a suggestion. It would be more accurately renamed from 48.

@Violasilkie I’m torn about using recorded delivery as the form says it could take longer. You can get proof of delivery. (Says form) I wonder if that’s something different. I’m now opening my envelope again as I’ve just helped DD get from bed to dressed and haven’t written down loads of things!

I think its the one that says Special Delivery guaranteed 1pm on this (rather than 1st, 2nd, freepost or an "aim":

https://www.royalmail.com/sending/uk

Nearly there @PurringTiger. I know the instructions say there is no need to send it recorded and that it can take longer that way, but like @Violasilkie, I always sent it tracked/recorded. That way, I have evidence it I has been received and not just proof of postage.

Off to the post office I go! Anybody have any idea how long a decision will take please?

@PurringTiger That is a case of how long is a piece of string, I’m afraid. In part, it depends on if it is dealt with internally or if it is passed to the health assessment provider for your area. If it is the former, it can be a matter of days - although not always that quick. If the latter, some are still waiting months and months later. Last month, the government said the mean clearance time for normal rules award reviews was 25 weeks and the median 20 weeks.

DD2’s AR1 form arrived at the end of July. I returned the forms within a few days. I knew the form was going to land, and I had prepared answers and the evidence to send. A decision was made mid August, and we received the decision letter at the end of August. Her case was obviously made in-house. I thought it would be sent out but wasn’t.

@roaringdragon oh so it could be after Christmas. I best forget about it then. I can’t be on high alert for a response for that long.

@roaringdragon that was an exhausting read and I’m massively impressed. I find that side of things very hard.

Lots of physical work here this weekend. I am aching all over but much has been achieved. I feel a strong urge to make things work for our family in this house, which means we do need to make changes.